


Brave New World: Genesis

by only_freakin_donuts



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Heroes AU, I mean probably angsty, but also like meh, could be angstier I think, like the show Heroes, super long ride, very big good vs. bad aspect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-07-28 21:23:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16250069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/only_freakin_donuts/pseuds/only_freakin_donuts
Summary: Heroes (the show) AU. People have superpowers. It's a brave new world out there.





	1. Genesis

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! Welcome to the Brave New World series. Here's the way it'll work:
> 
> Genesis, this chapter, serves as a prologue. There will be two parts to it.  
> Volume One comes next. It is anticipated to have two parts as well.  
> Followed by Volumes 2, 3 and possibly 4. Probably all two parts each as well.  
> And then most likely, an epilogue.
> 
> Each will be posted as new works under the Brave New World series, so be sure to keep an eye out for them!  
> If you have any questions or want to ask about the AU or about anyone's powers, comment or reach out to me @only-freakin-sunflowers on tumblr!

Connor

There once was a son. Just a son. Not a genius. Not anything special. Not anyone special.

His power was his brain, and his determination to be someone, to do something. To be half the man his father was, do half the things that he did. Of course, he couldn’t have discoveries like he did, have a scientific breakthrough like he did. His dad had already filled those shoes. The discoveries had been made, the research had been done. Almost, anyways.

Evolved humans. The simple notion that select people were simply more evolved than others. Genes could determine everything about a person– could make them have red hair, pointed ears, or Down’s Syndrome. It could make them run fast. It could make them fly, shoot fire from their fingertips, or hear a pin drop from a mile away.

What?

Well, a boy could dream, right? His genes were nothing more than ordinary, he wasn’t evolved like they were. He was just a regular boy, with a dead dad. Murdered for his research, Connor would believe that until he was in the grave himself. But he had no proof. There was more proof for his crazy theory of evolved humans than there was that he was murdered over it. 

Someone clearly didn’t want _that_ getting out. Maybe they were more upset than Connor was that they were just ordinary. Jealousy was a green-eyed monster.

But determination was quite the monster itself. He may not have a power, but he had that. He wanted– no, he needed– to finish what his father started, what he spent so many hours slaving over. He would prove the theory right, and finish the map his father had made to track the evolved humans he’d already proven to exist.

And equally as important, he would catch whoever it was that rendered his father unable to finish this project himself. 

Denise

“What took you so long?” Connor asks defiantly, as his longtime friend finally moseys on into the corral.  
Denise looks up from her phone, checking the time. “What, I can’t just snap my fingers and be here. I don’t even live in the state.”  
Connor huffs. “What, that isn’t how it works? Do you have to say something in Latin, is that it?”  
It’s Denise’s turn to huff. “I’m an evo, not a mage, Connor.” 

Denise was the only of only two evos Connor personally knew. He hadn’t even known she was one, until he’d started telling her about his father’s research– and then she disappeared before his very eyes, teleported to New York City, and brought him back a postcard and a pretzel. ( _“I always knew you were special, Denise. Homeland Security does not appreciate you the way they should.”_ ) 

“You know I don’t have complete control over my abilities yet as it is,” she continues. “I just had to check the time and date to make sure I did it right. I could’ve ended up in 1880s Chinatown if I wasn’t careful, I’ve been there on accident before.”  
“You’re still fascinating,” Connor marvels. “So you had to learn to harness your power, to control it the way you want? You weren’t just born knowing how to do this, you couldn’t bend space and time before you could walk, you couldn’t teleport out of school before a big math test?”  
“I could not bend space and time before I could walk or teleport away from tests in school,” Denise confirms. “I only learned I could do this as an adult. I don’t know if you hit a certain age before your abilities come to, it might be different for everyone. Is there anything in your father’s research about that?”  
Connor shakes his head. “His research is… spotty, at best. He died before it got to be any good. Not to mention I don’t think he’d ever met an evolved human, just studied them. All theory and no practice.”  
“That’s what I am, practice?” Denise scoffs jokingly.

“Someone’s after it all,” Connor says, downplaying more than he should, “trying to steal it, I think.”  
“Why would they do that?” she asks. “And who? Who would do that?”  
“I don’t know who or why, I just know I need to do it before they do.”  
“You’ve done it, you’ve proved it,” Denise points out. “You know that I exist, there’s a few more on this map here that your father started, to track them.”  
“We need to finish the map,” he tells her. “Find all the evos, all the people who can things the way you can.”  
“And do what? Study them? We don’t want to be locked up and studied, Connor,” Denise scolds him.  
“That’s not my intention at all!” Connor argues, pacing in circles. “That wouldn’t have been my father’s either. But whoever else is trying to track you guys, who knows what they want to do? Suppress you guys, take your abilities away from you, treat you like fighting dogs and guinea pigs all in one. Or worse, they could have plans to exterminate you, like unwanted vermin. I just want to protect you–” He stops as he bumps into a shelf. “Ouch!”

“Let me see,” Denise prods, in her low, motherly tone.  
Connor turns his head so she can see the spot on his scalp that feels as though it’s opened. “Nice one,” she mumbles. She presses two fingers to it. And then it’s gone.

“What did you just do?!” Connor asks, his voice filled with amazement as his fingers feel for the laceration, not to be found.  
“What, you thought bending space and time was my only ability?” Denise asks. “I’m a mother, Connor. Mothers are healers. Maybe not all mothers do it like I do, but what are we if not innate fixers?”  
“Denise, I’ll say it again,” he starts, smiling with satisfaction. “Homeland Security does not appreciate you the way they should.”  
“Well, they do pay me a pretty penny,” she says under her breath. “We need to assemble a team, to help you with this project of yours. Do you know any other special people?”  
Connor smiles. She’s come around, seen that he is not the bad guy. “I do know one, we’ll start there.” 

Rufus

“You wanted to see me?” 

Connor looks up at the boy standing in the doorway of his office with a smile. “Rufus, meet my friend, Agent Denise Christopher, Homeland Security.”  
Rufus reaches a hand out to the lady at the desk, greeting her with a firm handshake… and seeing her life flash before his eyes, in a kaleidoscope of colours and images. He smiles. “Very nice to meet you.”  
Connor snickers. “Rufus now knows everything about you, Denise,” he alerts her.  
She looks at him with confusion written across her face, studying him. He didn’t appear to be anything much– a nerdy, black boy with wide eyes and a hoodie– but clearly he does some superhuman things, just the way she does.  
“How old are your kids?” Rufus asks, making polite, non-awkward conversation. He knows it’s okay because Connor initiated it. If Denise couldn’t be trusted, Connor never would’ve said anything, Rufus knows him well enough to know that. “Mark’s going off to college soon? I know University of Chicago is far, it’s really far, but it’s a good city. It’s where I grew up. He’d like it there.”  
“What did you just do?” she asks, still confused, but slightly amazed. _Someone else like her_.

“My mom used to call it my gift,” he says with a little shrug. “I can read people like an open book, even if they aren’t open at all. I see what they’re looking for, their innermost hopes, ambitions, emotions, fears, their pasts–”  
“Their futures?”  
“No, not that,” he answers. “It’s like I know everything they’ll never tell me. That’s how I knew about your son, you’re worried he’s gonna move away in the fall, he’s never been that far from you. What if, he doesn’t call, not to mention you can’t protect him that far away–”  
“What else do you know?” she asks, almost defensively. Denise is an intrinsically private person, she was even before she worked for a high-security government agency.  
“I know that you’re a practicing Hindu, you’re married to a woman named Michelle and have two kids, Mark and Olivia. While you’re not ashamed to be gay, there’s always been strife between your sexual identity and your cultural identity, not to mentioning your family’s conflicting expectations–”  
“Okay, okay,” she stops him. She looks to Connor. “He’s a freak, I like him. He’ll be a good help.”  
“You say that as if you aren’t a freak too,” Connor says, “as if you aren’t all freaks. You haven’t even seen all he can do. He can also manipulate computers like nobody’s business, and that isn’t just the master’s degree at work.” He sounded like a proud father when he boasted about Rufus’ powers, while Rufus just shrugged modestly.

“Connor believed in me, back when I was just a kid,” Rufus says. “He knew that even if I was just a boy from the west Chicago ghetto, I was meant for something big and I was someone special.”  
“We all just need someone who believes in us,” Connor replies. He never saw his relationship with Rufus as a saviour situation, or anything more than it was– he saw a kid with potential and made sure he accessed it. “That’s what we’re doing, with this hunt, that’s all it is. We’re searching for people with extraordinary abilities, like you two have, and protecting them, empowering them.”  
“While also empowering your ego,” Denise grunts.  
“I’m not just doing this to prove a point, Denise,” Connor emphasizes, “though, proving your existence and the existence of your superior genetics is important, I’m doing this for the greater good.”  
Rufus nods, putting all the pieces together in that overactive, over-evolved brain of his. “Yeah, I’m in, sure. I’m not a superhero, I’m no Clark Kent, but I’m in.”

“And, I know another girl, she has abilities too. Not like mine, she has her own thing going on, but, would you want to meet her?”

Jiya

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Connor mumbles, swatting a puff of identified smoke away from his face and pushing his way through the crusty crowd. He really detested Oakland. And flea markets.  
“She’ll be here, she’s here most Wednesdays,” Rufus promises, stepping over a homeless person. “She always sets up right in this aisle, it’s the cheapest.”  
“I can’t imagine why,” Connor mumbles sarcastically, making his way through the tight space, following Rufus.  
“She sells her art to help support her family,” Rufus continues. “Her dad got sick and was on chemo, so the money went there. Her parents are immigrants, money was always tight, she’s the oldest of three kids. The only reason she got through school was because she had a full-ride scholarship.”  
“Did she tell you all that?” Connor asks, knowing full well the answer would be no. If Rufus liked the girl, there was no way he’d had the moxie to actually have a conversation with her, much less one of actual substance. He’d used his gift to get that out of her.  
“No, of course not,” Rufus answers quickly, as they arrive at their destination.

She didn’t have a table or even a booth really, the way Connor would’ve expected; she didn’t have your typical flea market artist setup. She had fabric and canvases lining her space, and on the floor, also lined with cheap fabric, seemed to be a painting she was working on, along with a sprawl of paints and brushes. In the middle of it all is the girl they’re looking for. She looks up at Connor with a blank, unfriendly expression, but at Rufus with a smile.  
“You’ve done more since last time I was here,” he notes, looking at the new paintings lining her space.  
She nods, but doesn’t elaborate. Rufus sits down beside her. “This is Connor, that I told you about. You can trust him. And you can show him, what you do.”  
Her dark eyes drift back up to Connor, who watches with a borderline confused expression on his face. 

His confusion only becomes more apparent watching what comes next– watching her eyes go from black to pure white, as she settles in to scribble at her canvas.  
Connor looks at Rufus, stunned. “H-how? Can she even see?”  
“That’s her ability,” Rufus shrugs. “Her eyes aren’t seeing, her brain is. Wait till you see what she’s painting.” 

The boys watch her paint in silence until she finishes. It could’ve taken hours and they wouldn’t have noticed, both mesmerized. Rufus had come to watch her paint many times before, but he still found it so cool what she did, especially when he saw it through. When she comes to, her eyes returning their natural colour and her body jolting just slightly, she looks down at the canvas, seeing what’s on it for the first time.  
“Do you recognize that girl?” Rufus asks, referring to the blonde girl she’s painted. The blonde girl, who even though she’s in a blouse and jeans, holding a bag of groceries and a boxed pie,and smiling; her reflection is in a biker jacket, holding a gun, and smirking.  
“Nope,” Jiya answers. “I’m sure I’ll meet her soon though,” she shrugs.  
“Why do you say that?” Connor asks, as Jiya gets up to hang the canvas to dry.

“Can you pull up today’s East Bay Times cover on your phone?” she asks him.  
He does as she asks with blind obedience, looking at the picture of a bus accident. She nods. “What’s the number on the bus?”  
“511,” he answers.  
She leads him over to a painting on her right side wall. “You painted the newspaper cover,” he nods. Then he looks at the date on the painting. “Three weeks ago.”

Connor looks back at Rufus with a big grin on his face. “This girl is amazing!” 

Lucy

“There’s another girl on my father’s map from around here,” Connor continues, as him and Rufus mill around the booth while Jiya cleans up for the day. “She’s a professor at Stanford. Anthropology.”  
“Is her name Lucy Preston?” Jiya asks. They didn’t know she’d been listening.  
“Yes, why? Did you draw her too?” Connor asks, inevitably weary of the girl.  
“No, she was my college roommate,” Jiya tells him. “She’s nice. The most straightlaced, non-straight girl you’ll ever know, very kind. I haven’t seen her in a few years.”  
“Can we trust her?” Connor asks. He didn’t want to reach out to just anyone not knowing where they stood or what they believed in. This team could not run without trust.  
“She’s never given me a reason not to,” Jiya answers truthfully.  
“Would you two like to come with me to Stanford, then?” Connor asks. “I found Professor Preston’s contact information on their website.”  
“I have to pick up my brother from school at 3, I can’t go to Palo Alto,” Rufus answers.  
“And I have a date,” Jiya nods sincerely. “Gettin’ in bed with Harry Potter. Have fun though.”

\----------

Stanford University was much more Connor’s comfort zone. Once a professor himself, he felt comfortable around students and academia, libraries and lecture halls. He felt that him and Lucy would get along well already, even though they hadn’t yet met. 

He’s ever so accustomed to academic offices, telling the secretary who he’s looking for and being directed to the right office in the long hall full of them, knocking on a menacing looking door.  
“Come in,” a voice calls.

Connor opens up the door to find a young woman– younger than your average professor– in a blazer, balancing a textbook in her hand, standing by the window. “Hello,” he begins curtly.  
“Hello,” she answers, with a bubbly, friendly, slightly caught off guard voice.  
“Dr. Connor Mason,” he introduces himself, reaching a hand out. “University of Chester, formerly.”  
“Chester,” she nods, “you’re a long way from home.”  
“For good reason,” he says. “You understand, Dr. Preston, I’m following the research.”  
Lucy laughs. “You are speaking my language, but I’m not a doctor. My mother is Dr. Preston.”  
“Your mother?” he inquires. “She works here too, correct?”  
“She used to,” she nods. “She took sabbatical and decided not to come back, she left her position to me.”  
“She must have some faith in you, to give you that responsibility at your age.”  
“My age never played much of a factor in it at all,” she reasons. “I always knew I’d be here one day. My mother pioneered this department, it was my destiny that one day I’d take over for her.”

Connor moves a little bit closer for intimacy, sitting on the edge of her desk. “What if I told you your destiny was meant to be something else, that you were meant to do something more than this?”  
She answers after a careful moment, with a hint of a stammer. “I-I’d tell you that you don’t know me,” she says, “that you’re wrong.”  
“I’m not saying that I know you, Lucy, of course I don’t. I’m saying I think you have more potential than you are using,” he says carefully.  
“How did you know my name? To find me, to find my office, to address me just now?” she asks, her brow furrowing.  
“I know more than just that. I found you on the internet– I had your name and then your location at my fingertips. But I’m not the one who really can find people at their fingertips, am I?” 

She narrows her eyes at him. “I don’t know _what_ you’re talking about. I don’t know you. And you don’t know me.”  
“My father, Eugene Mason,” Connor explains quickly. “He was a world-class geneticist, he was studying evolved human genetics. You are an evolved human, Lucy, you can do something not everyone can, and it’s in your genetics. You are superior and you have a purpose because of it, whether you like it or not, it is what it is. And I’m building a team, to fight against those who mean your species harm.”  
“My species?” Lucy clarifies. “I’m not an animal, Dr. Mason, and I’m certainly not a superhero. I’m just a professor. I just want to live my life.”  
“No, you just want to, literally, be invisible. Just disappear, like you do.”  
“I don’t want anything to do with you,” Lucy says, slowly so he gets it through his thick, bald skull.  
Connor nods, disappointed, but not surprised. “That is your prerogative.” He stands up, slipping her his card. “If you change your mind,” he explains. “Which, I sincerely hope you will. It was nice meeting you, Ms. Preston.” 

He couldn’t win them all.

Wyatt

The first “team” meeting, of the makeshift, shambled team, was held in Connor’s office, four of them and a box of pizza.  
“We need more people,” Connor frets, as if it isn’t obvious. “What are we supposed to do, keep going down my father’s list just approaching people we don’t know? Show up at their doors?”  
“They’ll think we’re Jehovah Witnesses,” Rufus mumbles.  
“We sound as crazy as them,” Jiya adds, mouth full of pizza. “And we look like some strange, ethnically diverse Avengers or something.”  
“You aren’t helping,” Connor huffs.  
“But they aren’t wrong,” Denise points out. “We’re… a disaster. We at least need some manpower on this team. If there was ever a question, we aren’t a very physically strong group.”  
“What, you don’t think I have manpower, Denise?” Rufus asks, obviously kidding. “I am swift as the coursing river, have the force of a great typhoon, the strength of a raging fire.”  
“Well, we’ll need more than that to defeat the Huns,” Denise fires back quickly. “Whatever the Huns exactly are, anyways. Connor?”  
“Pardon? Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”  
“She’s asking for a purpose,” Rufus tells him. “And for once in her life, she’s asking for a strong, dominating man.”  
“I don’t know,” he answers bleakly. “I don’t know who else to recruit, you guys were all I had.”  
“I know someone we can call, I will put in the call tomorrow,” Denise settles. “He’s military trained, gifted, and very trustworthy. Alright?”  
“Can we go home now?” Jiya speaks up. The pizza was gone (in part, her doing) and she was bored. “Meet again with manpower?” 

\---------

This means meeting again on Master Sergeant Wyatt Logan’s front steps, in the San Francisco fog and rain that aptly matched the mood.  
“We look presentable,” Rufus nods.  
“We look like wet rats,” Jiya argues. “But it’s fine.”

“Someone should knock on the door,” she coughs. Everyone looks to Connor, their group leader. He puts his best foot forward and raps on the broad wood door.  
A moment later, a tall, broad man opens the door, smiling politely at the crew he finds. “Hello,” he nods.  
Everyone mumbles a chirpy hello, as Rufus reaches his hand out, smiling as his head fills with Wyatt’s Logan’s life story; military, football, fighting, family… a woman that Rufus thought he’d seen before, but couldn’t place her face.  
“Can I help you?” Wyatt asks, and then he notices Denise, and his smile widens, opening his arms wide. “Nice to see you again, Officer Christopher.”  
“Ah, it’s Agent Christopher now,” she smiles, leaning in for a hug. “I’m with Homeland Security. But, also this team here. And we have a proposition for you to join us, Mr. Invincible.” 

Mr. Invincible, only a select few people called him that. He grins. “Come on in.”

“I was surprised to hear you were situated here now,” Denise mentions, as Wyatt pours a pitcher of lemonade into some glasses, for all his new friends.  
Wyatt nods. “I haven’t been home this long in a while,” he acknowledges. “But, uh, my wife’s been going through some stuff, she’s been sick.”  
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Denise nods. “Illness can make anyone feel horrible, powerless. Especially when you’re used to feeling powerful.”  
Wyatt nods again, questioning Denise’s intentions with his eyes. “Yeah, tell me about it,” he answers simply, taking a swig of lemonade.  
“You wanna show them what you can do?” she prompts him. His ability saved her life once, it was worth demonstrating.  
He smiles. “Don’t freak out now,” he drawls, smirking as he reaches for a table knife.  
“What are you–” Jiya starts, as Wyatt slices into his arm, and she gasps. After a moment, the wound heals as if it was never there.  
Wyatt chuckles. “That isn’t all. No point in showing you right now, but I’m a phaser, too. I can stick my hands through objects, I can walk through walls, nothing’s solid to me.”  
“Would you show us?” Jiya interrupts, her interest showing in her voice. This new world of _evolved humans_ is fascinating to her.  
“Yeah sure I guess,” Wyatt answers casually, as he sticks his fingers straight through his glass, then pulls it back out without an interference. Denise looks on proudly.  
“So, what do you need from me? What can I help you with?” he asks.  
Connor in particular was so relieved by his attitude. As opposed to Lucy’s previously, it was a breath of fresh air. 

Their meeting is interrupted with the front door clicking open. “Hey, babe I’m home!” a woman calls from the front door.  
Wyatt smiles. “You guys should meet my wife, Jessica.”  
With a bag of groceries nestled in one arm and a boxed pie in hand, a blonde, smiling woman enters the kitchen.

_Hey, they’ve seen her before._


	2. Umbrageous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morally grey are here to stay,  
> and you should hear their tales.   
> Our team will try and beat them,  
> but will they succeed or fail?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meet the bad guys, they have origin stories too. You'll get to hear them all before Genesis is through.   
> Then stay tuned for Volume One, the beginning of all the fun,  
> except you may have to wait a short bit, as Belle's still writing it :)

“Hey, you have friends over?” Jess notes, unsure. She’s never seen these people before, she thought she’d met all of Wyatt’s friends, considering most of them were hers too.   
“Uh, yeah,” Wyatt nods. “Jess, meet Dr. Connor Mason, and his… team.”   
“His _team_ , fancy,” Jess grins. “Hi, I’m Jessica.”  
Everyone lightly waves and Connor shakes her hand, not inflicting Rufus, the secret weapon, on her quite yet. Given that Wyatt was confident in introducing them, Jess may have a secret weapon of her own– and they couldn’t guarantee what that was. She was a risk, one that he was not willing to take this early in the game. 

“Jess, uh, can she join your team too? Is there like, a test or something she’s gotta do?” Wyatt asks. “And I can tell you that she’s trustworthy, and a team player. She’s one of the good guys.”

Her hands jolt, when he says that. Like a shock through her. God, her brain has to shut up, her hands feel like they’re going to fall off they’ve been doing so much of that lately. Just part of everything that was going on, she guessed. 

“I’m still figuring it all out,” she laughs nervously. “I don’t know that it’s super reliable.”   
“I’d say it’s pretty reliable,” Wyatt encourages her. “I seem to set it off pretty often.”   
“Is it a bullshit barometer?” Rufus chuckles.   
Wyatt and Jess share a secretive laugh. “Uh, kind of,” she admits, “It’s like a lie detection software in my brain, when someone’s lying my hands do this weird thing, I think. I don’t know. Honestly I’m not sure, it’s all really new. What is this team you’re building, anyways? What do you do?”   
It’s Connor’s moment to shine. “Well, I think you’re well aware of the presence of evolved humans by now–”  
“That’s what you call us? I was just calling us freaks.”   
“He calls us that too,” Denise intervenes.  
“ _Evolved humans_ ,” Connor repeats. “I believe there’s a threat, against you–”  
“What kind of threat?” Jess asks, with interest.  
“If you’d let the guy talk,” Wyatt jokes, sliding a hand over hers. She had a habit of interrupting everyone who spoke, her mind always moved faster than theirs. He knows she’s aware of it and can get self-conscious about it, though.   
Connor smiles patiently. “It’s alright,” he tells her. “It’s a fair question. And the true answer is that we really don’t know what it is we’re up against yet–” 

As he talks and Jess’s eyes wander, and she catches her reflection in the back door glass. Her image is distorted, as expected, but clearly smirking. That smirk has more evil in it than Jess does in her whole body. _“I know,” the reflection says_. Only she hears it.   
_No, you don’t, you don’t know anything, you aren’t real_ , Jess tells her, in her head of course. Wyatt would think she was crazier than he already did, not to mention these four kind strangers around her table. Your reflection doesn’t talk back to you, and you not to it. That’s just you in there, not someone else. Unless it isn’t. 

She missed what Connor said, she only tuned back in to hear Wyatt’s response. “I’m a military man, I’m used to not knowing exactly why we’re fighting, but knowing the fight’s worth it anyways.”  
“That’s exactly it,” Connor answers. “We are the pioneers, we’re on the forefront of genetic evolution here, protecting it from those with worse intentions.”   
“It’s pretty cool,” Wyatt agrees. He looks to his wife with an easy, encouraging grin. “You in, babe?”   
_“We’re totally in,” her reflection says, through the smirk._  
She does all she can to paint on a smile. “I’ll help you guys if you need it, but I’m not sure I’m comfortable being fully involved,” she admits. “Can I be, like, a casual worker?”   
“So long as your loyalties don’t lie elsewhere,” Connor answers, veering on the side of caution.  
“They don’t,” she tells him, and she means it.

But, her hands jolt. Maybe she doesn’t mean it as much as she says she does.

\------------

“That went pretty well, wouldn’t you say?” Wyatt says, settling into bed, kissing his wife’s shoulder. The interaction felt off, though. She felt as though she was radiating frost from her skin, from her… personality.   
He had his suspicions. He wouldn’t talk until she did though. In any state, she got defensive when he jumped the gun.  
“I felt a bit insecure,” she admits. Her voice sounds static and disconnected from her emotion, again emitting ice and anomaly. She learned to say statements like that in her therapy sessions, the hospital mandated ones.  
“Because you didn’t know the people? They seem like good people,” he tries.   
“I felt that there was a power imbalance.”  
“There was certainly not a power imbalance. We’re all powerful, quite literally.”  
“I didn’t like it.”  
“I think you should give them a chance,” Wyatt persists, as Jess slinks away from his touch. And then she catches her reflection, in the bathroom mirror, in view from where she’s sitting on their bed. 

And that’s all it takes. 

“I said I don’t like them, what don’t you get!” she yells, pulling away.   
Wyatt knows what’s happening, he’s used to these pendulum swings in his wife. “Who didn’t like it, you? Or Jessica?” he asks, holding his tongue. He learned that too, in hospital mandated therapy.   
The woman crosses her arms, unwilling to answer his question. In all her forms, Wyatt’s wife was stubborn as a mule.   
“Quinn,” Wyatt breathes, nearing the most unfamiliar woman. He hated that name on his lips, he hated the idea of saying another woman’s name in their bed at all. Not to mention, he wasn’t too fond of Quinn.

But when she looks at him, she’s just his wife. She has her eyes, her smile, her hair… but she is different. She is not his wife.   
“Jess doesn’t like those people because she thinks they’ll take advantage of her,” Quinn speaks. Her voice is so much harder when it’s hers. “She’s probably right. I don’t know them but who wouldn’t? She’s too trusting.”  
“They’re good people,” Wyatt reinforces.   
“You’re too trusting too,” Quinn grins, tapping Wyatt’s nose with her finger. She may not have picked him, but she did have a cute man. Jessica had good taste (in everything but clothes, that was).

Wyatt huffs and lays down, adjusting his pillow forcefully, turning over and turning off the light. “Goodnight, Quinn.”  
“Goodnight, Wyatt, see you in the morning,” she answers contently, pressing her back to his.   
He hoped he wouldn’t.

\--------------

“Who’s there?” Emma yells, hearing the warehouse’s garage door roar open.   
“Anyone you want me to be,” Quinn smirks, pulling the door shut behind her. What was the point of being a shapeshifter if she couldn’t poke fun at herself every now and then?

“Hey, loser, where are you?” Quinn asks, as she fans in front of her face. It smelled overwhelmingly like a warehouse in here. It was one, as far as anyone knew. It was an innocent paper company.  
“Hey, loser. Upstairs.”   
Quinn makes her way up the stairs two at a time. “Are you alone?” she asks.  
“What, do you have your clothes off?” Emma chuckles, meeting Quinn at the top of the stairs, finding her fully clothed. “Well that’s disappointing,” she mumbles.   
Quinn rolls her eyes. “I found out something you might be interested in.”   
“I’m listening,” Emma says, looking down at her phone. She doesn’t look too interested. 

“Someone’s after us,” Quinn answers. She thinks it’s groundbreaking information, whereas Emma just looks up at her bored. Maybe it would be groundbreaking if she phrased it properly.   
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she says. “We knew that. His name is Eugene Mason, he’s a geneticist from across the pond. He’s taken care of.”   
“No, not Eugene Mason, Connor Mason. His son,” Quinn explains. “He has this, like, Avengers type team with him, they all have abilities, and they’re not really sure what they’re after, but they know there’s something. They don’t know what they’re up against.”  
“And how do you know this?” Emma smirks, cocking a brow.  
“Cause Wyatt’s their Thor.” 

“No shit,” Emma exclaims, a little amazed. “So, like, you know things?”   
“They wanted me to be their Black Widow,” Quinn nods. “Well, they wanted her to be.”   
“Well she should say yes, you can double agent for us.” She’s engaged in the conversation now, as soon as it’s convenient for her, of course.   
“It doesn’t really work like that,” Quinn says, making a face and shaking her head. “I can’t control her, just like she can’t control me. And we’re very different.”  
“That’s fucked up,” Emma points out. “You know that, right?”  
“Thanks for the reminder,” Quinn nods, tensing and hugging her torso. Quinn was less insecure about all this than Jessica was, but she wasn’t made of steel, she wasn’t even as brave as she always acted.  
And Emma learned that body language. It meant Quinn was weakening, and Jessica would be returning soon. Oh sweet Jessica. Emma hated her, but she was easy to manipulate. 

Then again, to Emma, everyone was easy to manipulate.

With a swirl of her finger, she uncrosses Quinn’s arms for her, loosening her muscles, changing her tone.  
“I hate when you do that,” Quinn mumbles.   
“We know I could do much worse,” Emma settles, shaking her head with a disapproving look.  
“Why don’t you?” Quinn asks. “If I were you I’d probably use your powers much more often than you do. You can make anyone do or think anything you want them to, you can completely control a person. That’s so cool, and yet you barely even use it.”   
“I don’t need my powers to be powerful,” Emma answers, disenchanted with the whole concept. “I save them for when I really can’t get myself out of a bind.”   
“Or when you just wanna play around and make me your puppet, apparently,” Quinn mumbles.  
“I didn’t say I don’t like to have fun sometimes.” A self-satisfied grin flickers on her face.   
Quinn shakes her head, rolling her eyes.  
“Cheer up, chum.” The words aren’t what make Quinn smile– it’s Emma playing puppeteer again. God, Quinn hates her sometimes.

Then they hear the garage door open again. “Who goes there?” Emma calls out, hands on her hips. 

\----------------

“It’s me, Amy,” a quiet voice calls from the lower level. She doesn’t quite sound like she belongs here. In a way, she doesn’t. In another, she’s the only one in their current company who does. “Who’s here?”   
“Quinn and Emma,” Emma answers. “I’m expecting Garcia soon.” 

“You’re expecting Garcia?” Amy asks, trying not to appear suspicious in any way. “Haven’t seen him around in a while,” she adds, not to sound too suspicious.   
“Can’t exactly pop in and out whenever he wants, the Government’s kind of after him,” Emma reminds her. “They think he murdered his wife and daughter which… might be true.”  
“And yet you love him anyways,” Quinn mutters under her breath, busying herself flipping through the magazines scattered across the loft’s coffee table.   
“Hey,” Emma responds defensively. “He didn’t mean to.”   
“He didn’t mean to,” Quinn mutters again, mimicking her redheaded frenemy now. “He radiates nuclear energy out of his hands, he just _accidentally_ nuked his family to death.”   
“He loved them,” Emma defends him. “What would you know about love anyways, Quinn? All he ever wanted was to protect them.”   
Amy understood that. And she knew Garcia Flynn did too. She knew what happened to his family. She wondered why Emma didn’t.

 _Right_ , cause Emma was one of _them_. So was she, if anyone asked. But they weren’t much different really, her and Garcia Flynn. 

That’s why she’d approached him just hours ago, pleading with him for his help.

-

_He nodded when she saw her, she ran up to him as he was lighting a cigarette by his car. “Hello,” he greets her. He’d just dropped Emma off, they’d been on a lunch date. He’d have to be back to pick her up later. The things you do.  
“Garcia Flynn?” she asks, even though she knows it’s him. “Amy Preston. I need to talk to you.”   
“Do I know you?” he asks in return, a thick, Eastern European accent showing itself.   
“No, but I know you,” she answers. She sounds more menacing than she is, at all of 5’4 and a slim, sporty build.   
For some reason, Flynn isn’t as weary of her as he should be. Maybe he can see that she doesn’t mean him harm, even though most people do. He sees the same spark in her eyes most people don’t see in his. “How can I help you?” he asks wryly._

_“Well, there’s two things,” she huffs, sitting on the hood of his car. As she talks, she can see him narrowing his eyes at her, trying to read her the way he does everyone else. “If you’re trying to read my mind it won’t work,” she tells him. “I have a power too. Negation. Your powers don’t work around me. Keeps me safe, keeps others safe.”  
“You’re a protector,” he concludes. “I could tell. A child, Amy? Or a husband, or wife?”   
“A sister.”   
He nods. “Ah. The only child in me doesn’t get that, but the family man does. Continue, I’m sorry.”   
“It’s my sister,” she returns to her point. “I need your help to continue to protect her.”_

-

When Flynn leaves the Primatech Paper premise, he sets out to help Amy. He has an address on a piece of paper and that’s where he’s headed. It’s to an office at Stanford. Amy told him between the hours of two and four today, her sister Lucy wouldn’t be teaching, she’d most likely be eating lunch. Perhaps that’s why it smells like chicken fried rice as he knocks on the door. 

He can tell that the woman he finds is Amy’s sister, they look alike in a unique sort of way. The crease they get between their brows, the way they look when they’re surprised, and the hidden hunger behind their eyes. Like lions, the Preston ladies. He took a liking to them both already.  
“Lucy Preston,” he says, as she opens the door.   
“Do I know you?” she asks immediately. Last time a man with this much grandiose appeared at her door, he was trying to recruit her to his freak show. She was not about to let that happen again.  
“Garcia Flynn,” he says. “Perhaps you’ve heard of me. We need to talk.” 

And her stubbornness, that must be a Preston family heirloom too. “Who sent you?” she asks. “Was it Dr. Mason? I didn’t listen to him, so he thought I’d listen to you?”   
“Nobody sent me, Lucy,” he reiterates. “I know things. I know horrible things.”  
“About this _Rittenhouse_ you mentioned,” Lucy says.   
“They are dangerous people, they killed my family. I know what people say, I know it’s thought that I constructed a homemade, nuclear bomb to murder my family in cold blood but that is not what happened.”   
He wishes he knew mind control right now, cause it would really come in handy. “Why should I believe you? Nobody else has.”   
He can’t help but chuckle now. “I know you’re not a pack animal, Professor, don’t undermine yourself. Be a critical thinker.”  
“I am thinking critically, I am critical of you,” she answers, crossing her arms the way a stubborn child would.  
He huffs. “I didn’t wanna show you this, I don’t show people this… Can I trust you, Lucy Preston?” 

He opens his palm up to the ceiling, and lets the thought of his slain wife and daughter fester in his mind. But only a little. He only wants to make himself a little angry, or he’d burn this whole building down (and that was not the definition of keeping a low profile).   
“What is that?” she demands. She’s demanding for a tiny person, he’s learned that much already.   
“The reason the world thinks my family is dead,” he answers, his tone grave, shutting it off immediately. “It could kill if I wasn’t careful, if I wasn’t in control. I am in control, I have to be. And this is the only thing I’m lying about.” 

“You are radioactive,” she says back to him, “And this Rittenhouse murdered your family. That’s what you’re telling me?”   
He nods. “And you think me joining Dr. Mason’s team will protect me from Rittenhouse?”  
He nods again. “Not only protect yourself, but more importantly stop them from harming anyone else, dismembering any other families.”  
“Why me?” she asks him. Or rather, interrogates him. “How did you even find me?” _She really should change her number to be unlisted, she had too many all-but-random, knowledgeable, strangers in her office lately._  
He taps a finger against his head. “Did I mention I can read minds?”   
“Well that would’ve been a nice opener,” she huffs. “You’re radioactive, you read minds, and Rittenhouse murdered your family,” she relays.

And he nods. “And you: can locate people like a human atlas, can turn invisible as you please, and should really consider joining Dr. Mason’s goon squad. And you are meant for greatness.”   
She hated when other people were right.

\-----------

“Dr. Mason.” 

Connor startles, not expecting a woman on his front porch. “Ms. Preston,” he greets her, his surprise evident. “I would ask how you know where I live, but…”  
“Sorry to invade your privacy,” she says, cutting him off, anxious to get to the point. “I want to join the team. I want to be a part of this– whatever this is.”   
Connor smiles, reaching out his hand. “Welcome to the team, Ms. Preston.”  
She shakes his hand in return with a serious look on her face. “Call me Lucy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does anyone have a favourite power or character so far??? I know I had a lot of fun with Emma and her powers, more than I expected. Any predictions for Volume One? (And if you have suggestions, I may actually be able to work them in, as I haven't fully written Vol. 1 yet)

**Author's Note:**

> (Not every chapter will have those headings, just this introductory one!)
> 
> Remember, any questions, comments, or criticisms, reach out to me here or on tumblr @only-freakin-sunflowers!  
> (Ps: if you watched Heroes... it's a very hard show to replicate. I'm taking a lot of creative liberties while also trying to keep some of the plot the same. It's a fine line. But if you have suggestions of things you wanna see happen or ask how the AU correlates to the show, ask away!


End file.
